Question about Linux/Ubuntu

[Baker]

Later today, I am going to get ahold of a Windows 98 machine someone has that they never use and never uses and probably Ubuntu on it.

Will the Ubuntu install format the harddrive or whatever it needs to do?

If not, where is a good guide on installing Ubuntu without having to buy/own any third party apps at all.

[tical]

Baker, I have Ubuntu.iso on disc and all I did was threw it in and changed first boot device in BIOS and it installed.

[Canadian*Sniper]

use partition magic to create a blank partition in your harddrive. You can still have your windows 98 on the other partition. Now install Ubuntu and use 512MB of it to make a SWAP partition. Use the rest of that blank partition to install Ubuntu Linux. If I recall correctly, there's an option for it to do that for you. It will show you the end results before actually doing anything.

Every linux OS forum has tons of topics on how to install the OS. Gentoo has the most

[spooker]

what is the swap partition for again

[Canadian*Sniper]

Virtual Memory Swapping

note: you can have more than one linux partition and only need 1 SWAP partition.

[foq]

Spooker, the swap file is, at least in windows, a part of your hard drive that Windows tells the computer to use as RAM. Every program uses this, even if you had 40000000GB of ram installed, this swap file will satill be used. Some programs won't even work without it...

The swap file is a measure to make sure the computer doesn't crash when, in the older days, you had several things open at once, and was using up all that 8MB of ram. So Windows tells the computer so use a variable amount of the hard drive as RAM to prevent crashing. You can change it by going to My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Performance Options > "Change" under Virtual Memory, at least in Windows 2000. It's much the same in XP, I believe once you get to the Advanced tab you click on the swap file button or something..